It is important that children and adults are clear that there is one universal truth. There can only be one truthful explanation for origins which means that all other explanations are wrong. Truth is truth. Biblical truth, scientific truth, mathematical truth, and historical truth are in harmony. Truth can never contradict truth. We do not have to be afraid of history or science if rightly understood. True science is our friend, it is the manifestation of God’s wisdom. Design demands a Designer. Creation demands a Creator, and it is not feasible that a Creator would not communicate to us who He is. We are privileged to have the great Creator’s communication to us in our homes and school: The Holy Word of God; the Bible. In this we can learn about the Creator, our relationship to the Creator, and how that relationship can be enhanced. We can also learn things which science is too limited to teach us (see point 20, below).

We believe in all the experimentally verifiable laws of science. We also teach that the laws of physics and chemistry are purposely designed by the Creator to support life. If the known physical constants of the universe are slightly different, or the angle in a water molecule was slightly different, or the chemical laws of equilibria, etc, are any different then life would be impossible. (Imagine a universe without gravity for example.) Even something as simple as burning wood in a controlled campfire requires several laws of physics and chemistry to be just right, and several conditions on planet Earth to be just right also. This paradox is a puzzle to evolutionists who base everything on chance, but not to the creationist who believe that even something as simple as controlled fire, and something more complex such as life, is God’s design. The unproven and unprovable theory of the existence of millions of universes is based solely on tryingto explain this paradox. If there are millions of universes is has to be just right somewhere! (We don’t subscribe to this.)

This means that we believe in the overwhelming majority of science in the NZ curriculum and teach it accordingly, and we feel privileged to be part of the NZ education system. Our students have consistently scored above the national average in all external science exams, including biology.

In the area of biology we believe in natural selection, genetic drift, speciation, and adaptive radiation. We believe that God has designed these processes to enable living things to change slightly, within their kind, to enhance population health in new or changing environments. These processes are all re-arrangements, frequency shifts, and net losses of genetic information which is already present.

We do not believe that it is possible for non-living chemicals to arrange themselves into living things. Life is far too complex, the laws of chemistry go the wrong direction for protein structures or DNA bases to form long sequences outside of a living cell (eg: hydrolysis of peptides), and the laws of probability make this to be incomprehensible and a blind faith contrary to our best knowledge. But it must have happened because we are here says the evolutionist. We respond: It is easier to believe in a tornado ripping through a junk yard and assembling a jumbo jet. Yet single living cell is more complex than a jumbo jet  it more closely resembles a busy city of a million people complete with factories, transport links, storage depots, control mechanisms, and construction blue-prints. If life can come from non-life then repeat it in a laboratory! Even the most simple life (eg: bacteria) must essentially have the same DNA control and replication mechanisms as advanced life (us).

Neither do we believe that genetic information can increase, or ever has increased, in complexity over time. New genetic information (eg: a random mutation) must be useful to the carrier to eventually be prevalent in the population (natural selection is on the creationist side), and it must add genetic information to support evolution theory. Such mutations are unknown to science. The very small number of known useful mutations, and the best examples in textbooks, all switch off or damage a pre-existing metabolic pathway. They do not add additional, useful information. Also, if the environmental condition which caused the mutation to be useful (eg: malaria for sickle-cell anaemia, antibiotics for bacteria) is removed then the mutation is discovered to be harmful and the “useful” mutation is selected against by natural selection.

We do not believe in the great ages of geological time. There are a huge variety of dating methods, each with its own set of variable assumptions which can be tuned to “prove” any age. Our understanding of natural selection and adaptive radiation works on pre-existing genes. We do not require eons of ages to make a slow accumulation of genetic information by mutations seem plausible. (Adaptive radiation can take place as quickly as it takes to breed a variety of coloured populations of guinea pigs from a single pair of genetically rich parents.) Therefore we are more inclined to select dating methods which are more consistent with each other, and do not require unlikely assumptions (eg: “zero daughter” and “closed system” in radiometric methods), and which do not have glaring inconsistencies (eg: rocks a few meters apart at the base of the Grand Canyon have “dates” ranging from 500 million to 1500 million years, even when dated by the same method, lava flows from Mt Ngarahoe known to be from the 1800s dated to be several million years old).

We teach the processes of natural selection, genetic drift, speciation, adaptive radiation, and extinctions. These are all re-arrangements and net losses of genetic information present from creation. There is a host of documented evidence in textbooks, which we have no dispute with, to support these processes of minor changes within kinds, adapting to changing environments. (The term “kind” is a Biblical term which is wider than the modern concept of species. Eg: the cat family and dog family and horse family are all different “kinds” which even little children understand. It is genetically impossible for plants or animals of different kinds to breed together  a protection which God has placed in His creation.) We believe that genetic diversity is reduced over time through these natural selection processes. For example all eight bear species in the world (the bear “kind”) probably came from a single parent population of genetically rich individuals. Through migration, natural selection, and adaptive radiation into new niches we now have the eight species (others becoming extinct) which no longer breed with each other. However the polar bear population, for example, has lost many genes of its ancestors and is no longer able to adapt back into the environment its ancestors once thrived in. Similarly a population of white guinea pigs bred from a genetically rich coloured population will never be able to adapt back to its original colours  not even in a million years of natural selection.

We do not believe that adaptive and natural selection changes within kinds can be extrapolated to changes from one kind of animal to another or taken to the extreme, from non-living molecules to man. This is the ultimate in science fiction. Our students are trained to recognise how the textbooks use examples of natural selection process within a kind (which we believe in) and use this to “prove” molecules to man evolution (which we don’t accept). All adaptations are limited to the “gene pool” of the genes available to the population. These genes can be re-arranged, become more or less common, be damaged, hidden, or lost. But new genes coming into an ecosystem which are both useful for natural selection, and which increase genetic complexity to the level of making new protein structures are unknown to science. Hence all evolutionary processes are limited to changes within the kind  even for millions of generations if that were possible. Some changes can look dramatic in colour and size, but a horse remains a horse and a cat remains a cat, knowing that the horse kind includes the range of horses, including zebras, we see today, and similarly with the cats. Biologically a kind is similar to what scientists would call a genus. Even a five year old knows the difference between the horse, cat, dog, and bear “families”.

This is a side issue in the creation / evolution debate. We believe that evolution is impossible, even on an infinite time scale, and that the world-wide pool of genetic diversity has been on the decline ever since creation, and is not increasing. Natural selection on pre-existing genes can happen very quickly in geological terms. Unlike evolutionists we do not need vast eons of time to make evolution from molecules to man look plausible.

Nevertheless we do not accept the ages of the geological column. The current “ages” were invented by Charles Lyell (a friend of Charles Darwin) well before modern dating methods were available, to make evolution of molecules to man seem plausible. Our students are taught the basic assumptions needed the common dating methods used to support Lyell’s model and how unreliable and inconsistent they are.

Our students are also challenged to explain why there is no erosion between the pancake like layers of rock in the geological column, why all erosion is from the top layer down, why earthquake cracks can not be observed going through the bottom layers unless they go through the top also, and why there are many fossil trees protruding through several layers claimed to be tens of millions of years apart. It is clear that the Biblical model of a world wide flood producing layers of hydraulically separated sediment (which students can repeat overnight with dirt in a jar of water) is a more plausible explanation. In fact horizontal layers without erosion in between can only be formed in a single event. And when layers like this can be found hundreds of meters thick around the world it only confirms to us the global flood. The reader should also be aware that fossil sea shells can be found near the top of mountain ranges all around the world. Ironically, no geologist denies that all mountain ranges were once under water. It is only a question of when and whether they were all under water at the same time, and the non-Christian of necessity must come up with an alternative from the Bible. Even for New Zealand, the best geological research is that all of NZ was once under water at the same time (NZ Geographic magazine 2008), but this can not be accepted by the biologists.

By the way, the reader should be aware that the geological column in textbooks is not found in its entirety, in the correct order, anywhere in the world. Most places have only 2-3 of the various layers.

We have no problem with fossils. Fossils are on our side. Claims that the fossils show a gradual transition from simple to complex life are simply not true. Have you ever noticed in evolutionary biology textbooks how the branches in evolutionary trees often have dotted lines (at least in the more honest books)? This indicates that the transitional form has not yet been discovered. The fossils do not show a gradual change from less complex to more complex or a change of one kind of animal to another, anymore that the changes in life we would notice going from the sediment in the ocean floor to the tree tops of forests. (Ie: our position is that the fossils were buried according to habitat.) All of the major species of animals appear suddenly in the fossil record.

There are about a dozen or so “transitional form” discovered which can be made to appear to support evolution. But these are debated by even evolutionists. The two best, and most commonly quoted examples of “fossil evidence” supporting evolution used in textbooks, the evolution of the horse and whale, both have problems. Fossils of “modern horse” are found in the same layer as the so called horse-ancestor (eohippus), and the range of horse-like animals in the fossils is little different from the range still alive today. And we have known since the 1980s that the well promoted, so called, vestige pelvic bone, of the whale is used for muscle attachments in reproduction. The cleverly constructed transition of “whale ancestors” has actually no transition at all between the terrestrial (pelvic bone joining two hind limbs to the spine) and aquatic (no pelvic bone attached to the main skeleton). Look carefully next time.

If the fossils show any pattern at all, it is in the wrong direction. Many mammals, reptiles, and insects, are represented by bigger and stronger individuals in the fossils than what we see now. It just so happens that they lived alongside many species which are now extinct. Fossil platypus, for example, have teeth, but today’s platypus doesn’t. Pointing to a loss of information, not a gain.

We believe that most fossils were formed quickly during the global flood and were buried according to habitat. We do not expect life from the sea floor to be buried with life from land, and we do expect animals which can get away from rising flood waters to be buried last. We also expect to see some exceptions as plant and animal remains are washed around and mixed up a little. And this is exactly what we see in the fossils. The notion that at every point in the globe one can dig downwards through many habitats or ages of fossils is also wrong. Most fossil graveyards are a single layer of one habitat only.

When museums place fossils in an order to exhibit evolution they are selective and imaginative. Firstly, most fossils are clever (and possibly valid) extrapolations of single bones or bone fragments, and secondly lining up all the types of dogs from little to big can be just as convincing. They don’t tell you that often (as in the case of the horse) that many, or all, of the individuals can be found in the same layer. Just imagine what a clever museum curator, and biology textbook writer, could do if the frog was extinct and fossil tadpoles were discovered in various stages of development.

Fossils do not form in normal conditions as the carcasses get eaten or rot well before they can be preserved. And yet there are massive fossil graveyards in huge layers of sedimentary rock in all continents of the world, as we would expect from a global flood.

Dinosaurs have nothing directly or indirectly to do with the evolution of man. Some would try to “prove” that evolution of molecules to man must be true because dinosaurs existed. We know that dinosaurs existed, and we also know that they lived on this planet at the same time as man. Cave drawings, and pictures of dinosaurs on pottery fragments are well documented. Almost every culture in the world has oral, and sometimes written and pictured, traditions of dragons. (The word “dinosaur” was only coined in the 1800s). They are mentioned several times in the Bible and one is accurately described in the book of Job. Unfossilised dinosaur flesh containing blood cells, which can not be more than a few thousand years old and probably only a few hundred years old, has been found in Alaska. This has been well documented in evolutionary circles (but it won’t be put in kid’s textbooks or the general media) and attempts to explain it have been both creative and amusing, such as trying to explain the existence of blood cell structures by the action of bacteria.

What about feathered dinosaurs? The jury is still out on this one. The “feathers” are not feathers at all but rather remnants of hollow bristles. Even their promoters believe that the ones so far found had nothing to do with flight except that maybe they evolved into feathers over tens of millions of years. There could be several reasons for these hollow bristles such as heat regulation and sexual attraction (such as the mane on a horse or lion).

There have been documented cases in recent years of flying insects and a species of egret blown onto a windy, isolated island, and losing the ability to fly through natural selection. (With adequate food on the ground, no predators to escape from, and a large ocean to drown in, it is not hard to understand why natural selection could select against the ability to fly.) But this is a loss of genetic information, not a gain, and therefore fits our model better than the evolutionary model. The problem is where the wings came from in the first place!

We have no problem with the possibility of ancestors of flightless birds being able to fly. We believe it is very likely with some birds such as the kakapo, although more difficult to imagine with birds like the kiwi and penguin. We see little point in denying this possibility, as it fits our model better anyway. Also realise that flightless birds do use their wings for other purposes. An ostrich uses it wings for raising young, to scare predators, heat control, and as a wind foil to change direction and stop quickly. Even a kiwi appears to use its stumpy hidden vestige wing to keep the olfactory gland (for smelling) at the end of its beak warm over night.

9) What about the archaeopteryx (the “missing link” between reptiles and birds)?

The archaeopteryx is an extinct, unusual bird. Two fairly complete skeletons have been found in Europe. Unlike “modern birds” it had teeth set in sockets, claws on the ends of its wings (although the hoatzin in South America still does today), and a stronger than usual pelvic bone. However it also had muscle attachments (skeletons can reveal a lot) consistent with strong flying (like a raptor today), feathers, and strong talons. Modern biology textbooks picture the archaeopteryx as an awkward flier, or even glider, which could run and climb well, as a transitional form between reptiles and birds. This is probably the most famous fossil find in the world other than some “ape-men”.

Firstly, evolution is very short of transitional forms so the most has to be made out of whatever can be found. Secondly, we know by the muscle attachments and feathers that archaeopteryx was a strong flier, making some pictures in biology texts intentionally deceptive. It is not a transitional form. A true transitional form must have structures that are part way between feathers and scales, and forelimbs which are partway between legs and wings. Everything on the archaeopteryx is fully developed. Like the platypus it is an unusual collection of fully developed traits. Incidentally, modern birds, have been found in the same and lower layers than archaeopteryx. Some mammals have teeth and some don’t. Some reptiles have teeth and some don’t. Some fish have teeth and some don’t. We don’t see any issue with a fossil bird having teeth. And again, if fossil birds had teeth and today’s birds don’t, it is a loss, not a gain of genetic information.

Artists have creatively imagined what a true transitional form between reptiles and birds may have looked like. Such “creatures”, if they ever existed, wouldn’t be able to either fly or climb or run properly to escape predators or catch prey. Natural selection would have removed them. (Natural selection is on our side.) The unwelcome position of the evolutionist is that every step, and every small change, must be useful to the carrier to avoid being selected against.

Update: The February 2011 National Geographic stated that the archaeopteryx, whose well developed feathers causes a problem for dino to bird dating, was probably such a good flier, that it probably could take off from the ground. Well done National Geographic! We hope that the corrections flow down to the texbooks, but this may be hoping too much.

Our understanding of the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon and fossils has been given above. But didn’t it take millions of years for Colorado River to form the Grand Canyon?

No it didn’t. Local Indians have a legend of it being formed by a huge flood. We agree with the Indians whose oral tradition is likely to have originated from eye witness accounts. Like our local Manawatu Gorge, the height of the canyon in the center is higher than the elevation of the river where it enters the canyon. Hence if the Colorado River formed the Grand Canyon by slow erosion it had to begin by flowing up hill. (The same can be said of many spectacular gorges in the world.) A much better explanation, which is confirmed by the inland geography of contributory river flows and rock formations, is that there used to be a huge inland lake which suddenly burst through (triggered by flood or earthquake), forming the Canyon in a matter of days or even hours. It was a lot of water in a little time, not a little water in a lot of time. A similar, but much smaller canyon was formed as the result of the Mt St Helens eruption in 1980 in only 24 hours. (By the way the same eruption formed layered rock up to 20m thick from a superheated cloud of dust and ash which cooled and settled in a matter of days.) Many of the world’s gorges could have been formed this way shortly after the global flood when rock was soft and the waters were receding. However, the Grand Canyon is probably more recent. The lack of delta for the Colorado River is more consistent with our explanation than the evolutionary one.

Firstly, God is more than capable of creating water and then destroying it, but it is unlikely He did this. If the world’s crust is perfectly spherical there is sufficient water in the oceans to cover the planet by a depth of approximately 3km. The Bible states that the “fountains of the deep” were opened, and during the flood period the shape of the crust of the earth changed from the pre-flood continents and oceans, to a more spherical shape, to the great ocean basins we have now.

According to the best computer models we now have, the tectonic plates moved at the rate of meters per second under the ocean basins. (They now move at centimeters per year) This exposed hot magma to the water, sending huge supersonic fountains of pressurised steam through the ocean and into the atmosphere which came back to earth as rain. The world has not seen the like before or since. The cold rock at the surface of the continents moved underneath the warmer rock which came to the surface. This model is confirmed by large volumes of cold magma which is still underneath the world’s continents. (In a “millions of years” model this should all be warmed up to an equilibrium temperature a long time ago.)

Another interesting prediction of this computer model is magnetic field reversals. Vast amounts of cold (denser) rock sinking would make the rotation of the earth unstable causing the axis of rotation to change wildly during the flood year. (Objects will always naturally spin around the axis of greatest moment of intertia, and this axis changes as denser rock sinks.) The magnetic core, like a gyroscope, would remain stable, while the layers of lava forming under the oceans would show magnetic field reversals due to the crust rotating on a wildly changing axis. (Up until recently, it had been thought that the crust’s rotation has been stable and the magnetic core has been reversing.) Therefore the magnetic field reversals in lava flows under the great oceans, we believe, occurred in days, not millions of years.

It can be verified by modern technology that the continents are moving at around 3cm per year. Global earthquake and volcanism patterns are consistent with tectonic plate theory. At current sea levels it does look as though Africa fits into South America, and so on. (Although the fit is not so clear with only moderate changes to sea levels.) Some selected geological data does seem to confirm that the continents were once joined. Therefore we can work out how long ago these continents must have been joined.

Sorry, but we can’t work this out from current data as we do not know historical speeds of continental drift. Some creation scientists have been working on a model which suggests that in the conditions of the global flood, under the water, subducting of tectonic plates could have taken place at the rate of several meters per second. One of the problems encountered in a lot of geological processes is trying to measure ages by processes we observe today, assuming that these have always occurred at the same rate. By the way, the current rate of global erosion would level the great continents into the sea in only six million years, let alone time scales a hundred times this.

Yes they could. Adaptive radiation, whereby genetically rich parents can give rise to several different species which are slightly different, but still the same kind helps us to understand the dispersal of animals after the flood. The Biblical term “kind” is roughly equivalent to what biologists today call genera. (Eg: all of the dog kind which consists of domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackal, etc, belong to the same genus and needed to be represented by only one pair of animals on the ark.) The number of genera today, plus extinct genera adds up to around 8000 at a generous count, which means that around 16,000 individuals were needed on the ark. Surprisingly, the median size is about the size of a rat and just over 10% of these animals are larger than a sheep. Secondly, Noah probably had juveniles of the big species (juvenile dinosaurs are very small). To put this in perspective, the volume required is equivalent to less than 50 standard railway stock cars, and the volume of the ark was over ten times this, leaving lots of room for food, extra space for exercise, and movement in cages, etc.

One pair of all the insect species in the world actually weighs less than one tonne, even at today’s species count, and only a tiny fraction of this at the genera count. However insects are not included in the Hebrew word translated to “animal” in the Bible and may have survived the flood as either passengers on the animals or on floating vegetation.

We are indeed linked to chimpanzees  by a common Designer. Even bananas have 90% the same DNA as chimps. Most of DNA code controls processes within the cell and are common to all living things. As all DNA is designed by the same Designer for the same purpose, we expect it to be similar. We agree with the evolutionist that chimps are closer to use than any other animal, but some animal has to be, and it is not surprising that over 98% of chimp DNA is the same as ours. But take care with similarities in the design of animals. All DNA is designed by the same designer. If the common ancestor theory was true then we would expect the same characteristics to be found coded on the same place on the same chromosome of the different animals. Even though our knowledge of gene mapping is in its infancy, it is already clear that this expected pattern is regularly not the case. A particular gene on one of our chromosomes may be at an entirely different place on the chimp’s chromosomes. By the way, we have 46 chromosomes and the chimps have 48. Perhaps we are more closely related to the tea tree which also has 46 chromosomes.

The relatively new technique of using genetic similarities to determine how long ago two species or sub-species had a common ancestor is horribly flawed. The time scale assumes a constant rate of genetic variation. But genetic variation has slowed down dramatically over the ages as natural selection processes reduce genetic potential. Some animals, eg: the Cheetah, now have almost no genetic variation and therefore no potential to vary any more . The genetic variation which now takes place in genetically separated populations of the same species is very slow compared to what takes place, and has taken place, when genetically rich individuals adapt into new environmental niches. Therefore the time scale of technique is horribly exaggerated.

All the fossils of “ape-men” that have ever been found can fit comfortable in the boot of a standard car. Most fossils are teeth, bones, or bone fragments which are extrapolated (sometimes using good science, but often adding a lot of “artistic licence.”) into the whole specimen. All “ape-men” fit clearly into two catagories: extinct apes (eg: “Lucy” and the other australopithecines) or “modern man” (eg: Neanderthals who actually had a larger brain capacity than us.) The missing link is still missing. In Y13 biology our students examine the claims and the evidence more closely, discovering why evolutionists are not agreed among themselves on the evolutionary pathway of man. In the current evolutionary textbook we use, there are five “possible” pathways of evolution from apes to men presented. Upon close examination there is not a single “ape man” fossil which is common to all five proposals.

Artists are very clever in giving impressions. The first drawings of “Lucy” had human like feet which has now been retracted by most evolutionists (The original fossil didn’t have feet). Artists can put white around the eyes to make the face look human-like or hair around the face to make it look ape-like depending on which suits the impression required. National Geographic artists, especially, are notorious at this. Sometimes the entire body is extrapolated from a piece of skull or jaw bone. If other bone fragments are found nearby then the ones which fit the case are selected to be part of the body as well.

We believe in an ice age in the center and north of the large northern hemisphere continents in the centuries immediately following the global flood, before climate came back into equilibrium. There is not much historical record of this because not many people lived in these regions. We know that the Neanderthals (a race of “modern” humans from Europe) lived in the presence of this ice age. These people were stocky, like Innuit, and thereby adapted for a cold climate. (Interestingly, an ice age does not need colder winters than now. It needs cooler summers so that the melting rate in summer is not more than the freezing rate in winter.)

Why is it that light from stars millions of light years away can be seen today if the universe is not millions of years old? We believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old due to our belief in the scriptures and the consistency this has with several dating methods (but not the few radiometric methods used to support evolutionary ages.) We don’t have an issue with the size of the universe even though it is very difficult to measure directly beyond about 100 light years. There is a thought that the speed of light is not constant and has decayed logarithmically since creation when it was infinite speed. Evolutionists are forced to accept a changing speed of light because Big Bang theory simply doesn’t work with the current speed. (Interestingly, a faster speed of light increases the rate of radiometric decay, but we don’t need this fact to explain away radiometric dating, as these dating methods have other, more major, problems with their assumptions.) There is also a thought among some creationists that God created the rays of light so that man could “see” the stars immediately after creation. We know that God can do all things, but we feel that this explanation is too “forced” and not needed according to the best knowledge science now has of space and time.

We do not know for sure whether the speed of light has changed, but we do know that time is not constant. Time goes at different rates according to how squashed space is. (Sounds fantastic, but scientists have known this since the Einstein’s second theory of relativity, 1915. The more we discover how limited our understanding is, the more we can appreciate the wisdom of the Creator of space and time.) According to Einstein’s theory, which has now been verified by modern technology, space is squashed, and time is sped up, by gravity. According to both Big Bang theory or the Bible (Isaiah 40:22) the universe was much smaller in its infancy. The distance across the universe was much less and the higher density of gravity would have made time go much, much faster relative to earth time (the earth was not part of this expanding process in the creation model as it was created before the rest of the universe, and is too special to be part of it). Even today, time runs much, much faster in other places in the universe where there is a high density of gravity such as at the centre of galaxies or near black holes. (We are talking about thousands or even millions fold.) This time dilation effect would have allowed light from the distant reaches of the infant universe to have reached the earth, in a matter of days, relative to an earth bound observer.

18) What about the background radiation in the universe left over from the Big Bang?

The Bible states, in several places, that the universe is expanding (eg: Isaiah 40:22, 45:12, Jer 10:12, Zech 12:1) and has done so since creation. It is still expanding at a rate that can not be explained by natural forces as gravity should be slowing it down more. Hence the background radiation discovered , and what causes up to 10% of the static on radios, can be explained from creation just as easily as “Big Bang”. But creation does not have the other problems such as trying to explain or avoid where the initial matter/energy came from and what triggered it off. The first opponents of “Big Bang” theory were evolutionists because they were uncomfortable with the notion that the universe had a beginning.

Big bang theory is actually fairly close to our understanding of how God created the universe. The major differences is the time scale  even allowing for time dilation described above, the fact that the earth was not part of the expanding universe, and the fact the God controlled and planned all things. We believe that God created the universe out of nothing. The evolutionists now believe that the universe created itself out of something no bigger than a pin head (this primordial “pre Big Bang” object has got smaller over the years and is now literally a pin head away from our belief), and some proponents of Big Bang are now theorising that even a pin head is too big and perhaps it was nothing after all. There are also differences in consequences. The naturalistic “Big Bang” predicts that the universe has no centre and is homogenous (evenly spread). The creationist doesn’t need to make these or any similar predictions, but our best current knowledge is that the universe is not homogenous and it does have a centre. And what is more, out of 100 billion galaxies, our galaxy is at the centre, otherwise we could not observe this.

The earth is the only known planet with a clear atmosphere, perfect for looking out at the stars. To a creationist it is a nice thought that God has placed us at the centre of the universe, enabling us to look out at the glory of His creation, and to praise Him for it.

• Most people have a powerful impression shaped by years of modelling. This can be through family, education, peers, and media. In the case of evolution it is also a comfort zone, and few want to be disturbed out of it

• They have known nothing else all their life and probably never thought of or heard of the issues mentioned in this article. (Until recently creation science literature has been either banned or put in the religious sections of universities, libraries, and schools. The internet has now changed all that, with creation science articles now readily available to all.)

• There is the fear of religion. If the only conceivable naturalistic explanation for our existence, no matter how bad, is rejected, there are unwelcome religious consequences and people are pushed out of their comfort zone. Hence the zeal of anti-creationists such as Richard Dawkins. Evolution is driven by the fear of religion, and desire to have no higher authority than ourselves, and the fear of even thinking about a judgment to come.

• Research scientists must promote evolution to be granted research funding (their salary) in all countries in the western world. Government and/or university funding would be withheld for any research likely to discredit evolution, and more likely to be continued if the research by extend our “knowledge” of evolution.

• Science teachers at high schools and universities face discrimination, or dismissal, if they are known to have serious scientific doubts about evolution. Scientific journals will almost never publish an article by a known creationist.

• Most scientists are genuinely unaware of the problems evolution has outside his/her immediate field. The astronomer is unaware of the problems the biologists has, and the palaeontologist has, or geologist has, etc. Thinking that evolution is proved beyond doubt in the other fields, each scientist is obliged to select data and interpret results in his/her own field which supports the evolutionary framework.

• There have been some deliberate hoaxes such as Haeckel’s embryo drawings, Piltdown man and Chinese feathered dinosaurs. (Beware of any fossil find coming out of China. The public has a false impression as the “retraction” is never released to the media with as much hype as the initial claim.) But overall the number of deliberate hoaxes are probably small, and in the end have probably done more harm to evolution theory than benefit.

However the number of scientists rejecting evolution is increasing. The main point is that Darwinian evolution can not explain the complexity which can be seen in a single cell, (Darwin himself only knew of the cell as a blob), or how genetic information can get more complex over time. In USA, today, despite one-sided indoctrination all the way through public education, more people actually reject evolution than accept it. One of the reasons is the increase of our knowledge, especially in the field of microbiology. Another reason is the internet and availability of cheap DVDs meaning that the arguments presented in this article, and many others can no longer be hidden from genuine inquiry. Up until recently public libraries and education institutions in the western world (the preservers of knowledge in our society) have deliberately prevented information being displayed which questions evolution  or at the very least have catalogued it out of the science section.

Our knowledge of science is limited to observable, measureable data, and repeatable experiments. Science, by its nature, can not prove or disprove, or explain many things, which are outside these limitations. This includes why or how the laws of science came into existence, what happens after this life, why things die, and why evolution has never been able to overcome aging and death. Even some things in this life such as love, appreciation of beauty, anger, joy, and other emotions can not be explained, let alone our relationship with God, and salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. (Try inventing a natural selection theory to explain why people get embarrassed and blush  but we know that there will be a lot of blushing on the day of judgment.) To learn about these things we need to go outside of science. We need communication from the Creator to know these things. One of the problems with evolution is that it tries to use science to answer a religious question, by putting the only truthful answer outside the definition of science, and then stating that truthful answer can’t be true because it is not inside the definition of science.

Science is not the absolute authority of truth, despite the attempt of many in the western world, and the media, and education systems to elevate science to the level that only the Bible should have. Science is the accumulation of knowledge gained by observation, measureable data, and repeatable experiments. This is all that science is. Much of this knowledge is growing rapidly, and much of this knowledge is forever changing, contradicting what was believed before. But the Bible has never changed.

The Bible says that man is body and soul. Science has gone an incredible way (but still has some way to go) to understand the body, or physical nature of man. But the activities of the soul, or spiritual nature, such as the emotions mentioned above, are to the greater extent beyond science. Similarly the Bible is not a scientific textbook and cannot answer many of the questions which science can answer. See point 22, below.

There are areas in which religion and science overlap. One of these areas is the origin of life. This is unavoidable unless we want to eliminate truth from the classroom. Students at this school are taught that truth is truth, and therefore a truthful religious explanation can never contradict a truthful scientific one. And if one truth appears to contradict the other then something is wrong in our understanding. It is science, not the Bible, which has had to change its position on many things over the years . If anything, the question of origins is a religious one, not a scientific one. Science has to become a pseudo-religion to attempt to answer the question of origins. Eg: A belief in the unproven or unprovable such as life coming from non-living chemicals despite the enormous odds of probability in the “random arrangement” of DNA code needed for a single protein, and a belief that new metabolic pathways can occur by random mutations.

Most scientists and teachers have respect for someone else’s religion and someone’s belief in the Bible. Those who state that religion should be kept out of science are actually not trying to eliminate religion, or even a religious alternative to evolution. What they really want to stop is scientific reasoning to be used against evolution. When a scientific reason contrary to evolution is proposed, it is all too easy, and too cheap, to “play the religious card” and avoid the scientific problem by saying that it is religiously motivated.

No it isn’t. It is written for a higher purpose. Yet it is scientifically accurate and is consistent with recent developments in science when properly understood. After all it is written by the same Creator of the Universe who speaks to us through science, even though science, unlike the Bible, is subject to human error.

The Bible is consistent with the water cycle (Ecc 1;7), ocean currents (Psalm 8:8), dinosaurs (Job 40:15-24), genetic code (Psalm 139: 16), electrical communication (Job 38: 35), and recent discoveries of undersea springs (Job 38: 13), and many other examples. With the exception of the dinosaur, it is not possible that the writer whom God used to write down the inspired word could have known or witnessed what he was writing about. But the Creator, knew, and we are privileged to live in a time when modern science has revealed these things to us.

It is sad that there are many versions of the Bible and not all can be trusted. But the different versions are in unison on the question of the origin of life. Like evolution there are ways in which careful study can lead to the truth, and clarity to which version in English best portrays the original manuscripts which is the communication of the Creator of the Universe to us. At this school we believe, and trust, that this is the King James Version. What an immense privilege it is that we may have this communication in our hands and teach the students out of it!

24) Why is it that a loving Creator allows so much misery in this world?

The Creator is a God of love. He is also a God of justice, and wisdom, and power, and sovereignty, and patience, and many other attributes, all of which are equal to His love. Mankind has sinned against God, and to the greater extent we have tried to push God out of our lives, in the service of our own desires contrary to God’s law and our conscience. God sends His judgments. In His sovereign will he takes some away in sickness, accidents, and disasters and spares others, extending their time of possibility for repentance and faith in the Saviour. For a person with saving faith in His Son, death is not an enemy. If we know something in our conscience of sin, and refusing God into our life, then we know that it is only by the Creator’s mercy that we are still spared, and that more people are spared rather than taken away whenever there is a natural disaster.

We can push the Creator out of our lives in this life, but no-one can escape the judgment. It is not like a sports club that we can participate or not as we choose. God, in mercy, is still extending the gospel message. He does not take delight in death or the punishment of sin. But it will happen, and the Bible, His message to us, predicts more “natural” disasters to come. God is a God of love. But we reject that love by rejecting the gift of His Son who died for sinners, then we will know Him as a God of justice. This we can not reject, because it will eventually be imposed against our will.

25) Is it possible that God could have used evolution as a process to develop life as it is today?

No it is not!!!

God can do all things, but He will not do anything which is unjust or dishonourable. The God of the Bible will not, and did not, use a wasteful process of death and suffering to produce something good. This is contrary to Scriptures, contrary to science as indicated above with many arguments, and contrary to any reverent notion of God. This theory can only be propounded by someone who has limited knowledge of science, a “flexible” adherence to the Bible, and who wants to marry together two diametrically opposed systems. Sadly there are many “Christians” today who fit this description well and who cause more embarrassment and frustration to us than the true evolutionist.

This article gives an idea of what the students are taught throughout the college years at this school. They are also taught the evolutionary explanations enabling them to answer external exam questions. If the external exam requires a certain answer our students are trained to answer it like, “It is believed that these fossils are found in Cambrian rock.” Such an answer must be marked correct if it contains the intended information, and yet it is not a statement of their belief.

The students are taught to discern the evidence presented in evolutionary textbooks, especially how observable science is cleverly, and sometimes dishonestly, extrapolated to “prove” the unprovable.

Until evolution comes up with documented evidence of useful mutations leading to increased genetic information and new metabolic pathways, and until the evolutionist can repeat life coming from non-living chemicals, the argument is over as far as we are concerned. There is no point in trying to debate us. The real issue is not whether or not change has taken place or is taking place. The real issue is the direction of change at the genetic level. Is genetic information become more complex or less complex over time? We believe one, and the evolutionist is forced to believe the other. We believe that observable science and common sense is on our side, while some highly speculative science is on the other side.

If young people are taught that they are the result of astronomical, physical, chemical, and biological accidents, without any accountability to a Creator, is it any wonder that many young people have no purpose in life and take “survival of the fittest” into the streets and playgrounds?

At this school students are taught that God is in control of all things. God knew every individual from before the beginning of time, and has a purpose for each one, and many assuring promises for those who seek Him earnestly, especially while they are young.

The Bible states (Proverbs 1:7) that the “Fear (awe) of God is the beginning of knowledge.” We must start at the right place otherwise we will also be deceived. Without this awe of God no logical scientific argument will convict the conscience, and people will continue to believe against reason of life coming from non-living chemicals, and new complex metabolic pathways coming by chance, no matter how improbable, and no matter how void the laboratory evidence. Big bang theory states that the universe is of magnitude 1016 seconds old, but the probability of amino acids in a single protein arranging themselves correctly by chance is one over ten to several hundred magnitudes. The probability of DNA bases arranging themselves, by chance into the code for a single protein is equally unlikely (evolutionists can not agree what came first  the protein for structures needed in the cell or the DNA code for the protein). Yet the human body has 400 billion cells, each of which has thousands of complex protein structures, and work together in a way we do not even comprehend.

The scientific aspects of creation are important for our students, but are a distant second in importance to the knowledge of God the Father as Creator, Covenant Maker, and Law Giver; Jesus Christ as Creator, Redeemer and Judge; and the Holy Spirit as Creator and Sanctifier. Without a saving knowledge of these things we will perish forever and our end will be worse than that of the evolutionist because we have rejected a greater light. Faith is above scientific reasoning and true faith can never be shaken by it. However, if our students are threatened by science “falsely so called”, we can equip them to use science to defend themselves. Science is our friend, it is on our side.